Search

Blueberries are apparently “mostly” native to North America, but I can’t figure out where else they might be native to from any Serious Historical Research (read: poking around on the Internet for awhile). They were apparently introduced to Europe, but that was in the 1930s, and Australia and New Zealand (1950s, and not successfully until the 1970s). They grow in South America, but my Serious Historical Research has not, thus far, yielded any results as to the history of their cultivation there, apart from Chile, where they were introduced in the 1980s. And in 1996 they were adopted as the official berry as Nova Scotia (as of 2008, they were Canada’s #1 fruit export)! But nothing more about South America. I am sorry for failing you, my friends. :(

I can tell you, however, that they were referred to as “skycolored berries” in colonial America, which is a fact that’s been floating around in my head for a few weeks now, and which delights me for reasons I cannot possibly figure out. Not gonna lie, I was mostly building towards that, and I felt like that wasn’t fact enough to support its own post. Whatever whatever. They were also frequently mistaken for the bilberry, which was native to England, and so were sometimes referred to as “skycolored bilberries”! In 1672, at least, they were frequently eaten dried, having been bought that way from the Indians, according to John Josselyn in his New England’s Rarities. Sad truth: I am not being sarcastic when I say that I think that’s pretty cool.